Get Rid Of The Baggage – 2024

An illustration by J. C. Leyendecker featured as the cover of The Saturday Evening Post welcoming in the New Year of 1908

This weekend, Uncle George spoke to me as I was writing in my journal. With two days to go until the New Year, I was contemplating what I wanted to accomplish in 2024 – and I heard Fr. McKenna’s voice call me back to this particular blog. Get Rid of the Baggage. And boy do I have a lot! My closet was overflowing with clothes I never wear, the same with my dresser, and my home office has been accumulating “stuff” since I retired. So, I made a decision early Saturday morning, that I was going to listen to the advice of this sage.

And I’ll tell you what – man, do I feel lighter and refreshed. I spent yesterday and today, going through that dresser, and going through that closet, and then tackling my office. I just returned from Goodwill dropping off 2 full 30 gallon garbage bags of clothes – all in good repair, a couple pairs of shoes, and some additional nicknacks. I was also able to shred and recycle a lot of paper items, and fill another two garbage bags, with garbage. My bedroom and my office have a clean slate – and I can feel a peace in my thoughts. Now to attend to my internal baggage, and 2024 will be a shining light for me.

Happy New Year to all, may you be blessed with Health, Peace, Love and Happiness, Joe

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Here’s Fr. McKenna’s original blog.

As the New Year begins, in old Rome, the people followed an unusual custom. At the stroke of midnight, they would open their windows and throw out old possessions into the streets below; broken chairs, ragged clothing, and old dishes. The reasoning behind the custom is that the people wished to go into the New Year without all this unnecessary baggage. In a dramatic way, the citizens of Rome cast out of their lives old grudges, hurt feelings and distressing memories of mishaps of the past year.

At this time of the year, all believers in a joyful way of living could open their front doors and throw out from their lives the unhappy events, the bruised hearts and the shattering disappointments of 2015. No one need go into the precious days of the New Year loaded down with the baggage of the year gone by. The time of this year ahead, 2016, comes to us fresh, filled with possibilities of delightful surprises and brand new experiences.

In the hearts of everyone lies riches and talents never before brought to the light of day. With a fresh outlook on the year to come, a person of faith can fall in love with life and bring to the surface all these hidden and unused beauties within. Does anyone use the heart to its full powers to give love and affection to family members and the world?

Recently, a medical doctor stated, “If I were a writer or a public speaker, I would be out there most of the time fighting fear. If I could cut down fear and worry in the lives of people, I could get in a lot more games of golf, because it is mostly fear and worry that fill my office.”

Like a heavy backpack, fear and worry pull people to the ground and leave no time for laughter, joy and sheer delight of living. Worry, in its root meaning, equals “strangulation” or “choking”. A worrier chokes off the real beauty of life.

A follower of the Lord can face each day with a loving trust in God and determine to rise above these ghosts of doom. I say “ghosts” because most of the things we worry about never occur. Whatever happens today, Jesus of Nazareth will help me deal with it. At the end of the week, we start our New Year. Don’t you think it’s time to get rid of your baggage, and hold on to the hope offered through the Christ Child?

Fr. George Mc Kenna